What Is the Meaning of Death?

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What Is the Meaning of Death?

If we are looking for the meaning of life, then we have to face the reality of death. The Teacher did, and he concluded that life is a zero-sumgame. No matter how many points you notch up in your life, death always brings your total back to nil.

Death prizes our fingers off everything, and takes it

from us. Of course, in reaching such a bleak conclusion, the Teacher also wondered whether there was any kind of joy that [The Teacher] people might snatch from the concluded that wreckage of life. He concluded, life is a zero- “There is nothing better than sum-game. No matter how many points to enjoy food and drink and to find satisfaction in work” you notch up in (Ecclesiastes 2:24). The Teacher your life, death acknowledged that these most always brings basic activities should spark joy. your total back Not even Marie Kondo would to nil. throw these away. And yet, the Teacher also realised that for many people living in the crisis of his own day, even these simple delights of life—a morsel of tasty food, a refreshing drink, or a sense of achievement and satisfaction—were beyond their grasp.

Many of us can scarcely imagine what it’s like to live in need of such basics. For others of us, it’s an

all too painful memory or plain reality. For those of us who cannot eat what we like, drink what we want, or achieve the goals we aim for, where does meaning lie? Is life meaningful only for the “haves” and not for the “have nots?” Well, the Teacher realised that death came to both. Whether rich or poor, just or unjust, powerful or weak—all end up in the grave.

The Teacher, who believed there was a God, could not figure out why this God did not do anything about the crisis facing his nation. How could the God whom so many relied on sit back and seem to do nothing? All the Teacher could do was slump his shoulders, let the tears roll down his face, and sigh with defeat. “Everything is meaningless … completely meaningless!” (Ecclesiastes 1:2) was his conclusion.

The book of Ecclesiastes makes it plain that if life is to Death is the most skilled thief of all. It robs us of life, steals our possessions, undermines our accomplishments, and takes away our loved ones.

have any sort of substance, any kind of real meaning, then we have to deal with death. For, though death is a seemingly natural part of life, it is also humanity’s greatest enemy. Death is the most skilled thief of all. It robs us of life, steals our possessions, undermines our accomplishments, and takes away our loved ones. And crises that take these things away from us remind us of our mortality, because they have the spectre of death rising behind them.